Down from and north-west of Haast Pass, emerging from the tunnel of beech forest, I turn my camper into a clearing rimmed with rust-coloured rocks. I stop to fill up my water container, to stretch, to adjust to the new climate and the change in landscape. It never fails to amaze me that after only an hour’s drive from Wanaka, where I live, and where the land is hard, straw-yellow and leather-brown, you can find yourself inside this wet, lush sponge of a rainforest, its air steamy and already tanged with sea salt, its contours soft, muffled in moss and beech leaves. The journey takes place at time-lapse speed, the land ahead unfolding, metamorphosing, blossoming—and that’s but a teaser of wilder things to come.

The soon-to-be-formidable Haast River is but a trickle here, and, if I bounced off a mid-stream boulder, I could leap across it in two strides. It has yet to meet its allies—the Wills and Burke, the Thomas and the host of creeks cascading down from Mount Aspiring National Park, and above all the mighty Landsborough, whose headwaters reach deep into the glaciers of Mount Cook. By the time the Haast reaches the coast only 60 km downstream, it will require a 737 m-long bridge to span it. Its braided gravel bed, torn as if by giant bulldozers and palisaded with uprooted trees, will bear testimony to its frequent rages.

The water swirling into my jerry can is as clear as kirsch, ice-cold but soft to taste. It has filtered down from the snowfields of Mount Brewster. It’s good water. Trout water. Tonic for the soul, and I drink it as such. For I’m here on a quest, a search for something I value and seem to have lost. When asked before my departure what it was I was looking for, I was beaten to an answer by a friend, who barrelled in, “He’s looking for a plot. He’s lost the plot!” Perhaps I have. But there is another way of putting it, too. I’d describe it as a severe case of existential doubt.

For the past few years I’ve been working as a fly-fishing guide, spending a good many days in the company of usually affluent clients from around the world. I’ve done a good job, or so I’ve been told, and my clients have almost invariably been agreeable and friendly people. They’ve arrived decked head-to-toe in the most expensive attire you could find, clutching the finest equipment, hyped up on brochures and magazine advertorials about New Zealand’s plentiful trophy fish. So far so good. But when you turn your passion into a business, begin peddling the very thing you love, it’s like sending your partner into a ring for a prize fight—they’re bound to take a few hits. They might lose, even get knocked out. Mine is currently decked, groggily listening to the KO countdown.

The punches have often hit as soon as we’ve got to a river. My optimistic clients have rarely had the skills and the stamina to pursue their desires (think of a hunter who cannot shoot); worse, many have considered trout not the beautiful, wild and free creature I hold so precious, but a mere plaything to be toyed with, a commodity to be acquired.

Many of these would-be fishermen (with a few notable exceptions) have been so far removed from the natural world it’s as if they consider fishing, once an act of procuring food, a swipe-your-credit-card-to-begin virtual-reality game. Often they haven’t been fit enough to walk along the stony river-bank, yet their expectations have been huge, as has their impatience to fulfil them. To me they seem to have lost their footing on earth and to be drifting in the phantasmagoria of cyberspace, the dreamland of sound bites, digitalised reality and instant gratification. Well, fly-fishing isn’t like that; it’s not the same as buying a Gucci bag in downtown Manhattan. You need to be a hunter, not a shopper. You have to go humbly and quietly, crawl on your knees if need be, respect your quarry. For many, coming down to such earth-bound reality was often a crash landing, and I was the ambulance man helping them back onto their feet.